The Other Half

Playing with the cardboard box or the packaging, rather than the present itself, is a memory of youth for many of us.

Design team Freedom of Creation (FOC), have worked with advertisers Amsterdam Worldwide to create the ‘What’s a left, without a right?’ campaign for sports label ASICS – playing with the interactive concept of packaging and merging it with the curious product itself, with inspiring results.

The mesh cage-like box, conceptualised by FOC, has to be destroyed with wire cutters, revealing two non-matching halves of 10 unique, restyled 1980s-inspired iconic models.

Sent to 10 international bloggers as gifts, the initiative was meant as a medium to find ‘their other half’ and exchange pieces to end up with a whole object. The bloggers were then invited to use their online network to locate the missing pieces.

The ‘presents’ were designed to be manufactured directly into a mesh packaging, which incorporated a personal message of what to do with the gift. Presented with half a toy bike, car or train – the quirky message of finding a whole shifts concepts of gift-wrapping and the permanence of objects.

“We knew that the intended recipients of these gifts are trend’setters. They had to receive something which was truly one’of’a’kind, that would have a strong ’wow’ factor’ said FOC founder and designer Janne Kyttanen

The campaign celebrates ASICS new 80s inspired footwear and highlights that in uniting our opposites, or other half, we can become stronger, balanced and complete.